Gotham Ep. 10 (Lovecraft)
Arkham Asylum has shadowed Gotham for some time. The institution, brought to recent lore popularity more so by the Rockstar video games than anything else, has always had a kind of peripheral role in the TV show. However, in the tail end of Lovecraft (Episode 10), it was very much brought in to the centre. It would be giving too much away to detail how exactly Arkham has been utilised by Gotham, but suffice is to say that the introduction of it as a central character will be a welcome change of pace for a show that has limited access to Batman lore, limited because most of what we know about Batman cannot be fully developed by such an early prequel.
Lovecraft was fairly unique for this first season of Gotham as it didn’t so much centre on characters such as Penguin or the organized crime underbelly of Falcone, Fish, etc (although those characters did have a few memorable scenes), but instead chose to develop Bruce, Alfred and Selina. Alfred in particular was well fleshed out, with some impressive nods to his military background and his general hardassness. Bruce and Selina have some of the best chemistry on the show and Lovecraft exploited that fact by giving them a lot of screen time together. The juxtaposition of their backgrounds works well, especially when it comes to the language they use and their knowledge of what they think constitutes real life.
Gotham is becoming a little less heavy-handed, probably because it has completed, for now, the rash and obviously overstated introduction of a lot of characters. It is settling in to a combination of a slightly fantastical crime drama married with a less well-written version of The Sopranos. All of this just happens to be happening in the DC universe, something which plays on the desires of a lot of people – what is the point in creating such a rich and varied world like the Batman world when we are always only restricted to experiencing it in 120 minute bursts whenever a film is made. Being in Gotham is enjoyable and Gotham is adding to that enjoyment in a restricted, but measured way.
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